Not a day passes for me here in Moscow without overhearing some mention of and/or comparison to America. The same cannot said about life in America, where Russia is brought up in everyday conversation about as frequently as Australia. The fact of the matter is, average Russians care about America, be it bad or good; but, average Americans don't give a damnn about Russia.

Let's take a minute to review the world leaders who most vehemently spew anti-American vitriol:
Putin (Russia)
Chavez (Venezuela)
Kim (North Korea)
Morales (Bolivia)
Yanukovych (Ukraine)
Ahmadinejad (Iran)
From where I stand, Americans should not only NOT be concerned that these "fine" examples of the democratic ideal dislike the USA, but in fact should be PROUD to be hated by such a cabal of despots, thieves, and unabashed populists.

As an American, I have no negative feelings towards Russia's government or its people. Neither does anybody I know. The more I have been able to see of the world, the more I have concluded that everybody is quite similar, wanting mostly the same things out of life. Russia will do whatever Russia does and it is fine. I hope my company continues to survive. I hope my kids turn out normal. I hope my family will make it. I don't spend 1 second thinking about why anybody in Russia hates us or why anybody here would hate Russia. Russians live their own lives. It is fine.

Not just anti-Americanism. Another element of Putin's policy involves mobilising the Russians living in the former reaches of the Empire, now independent countries, and using them to agressively project Russian foreign policy. This is done most vigorously in Ukraine and the Baltic States. Putin stridently denounces "interference" in Russia (by -- who else -- the United States) but has no qualms about constantly interfering in neighbouring countries himself. In the meantime, the eastern part of the Empire is gradually becoming Chinese...

After the Soviet Union collapsed it seemed that the relationship between the West and Russia was on a good path. One of the reasons for the Russian enthusiasm was possibly that the Soviet-communist model had so obviously failed that Boris Yeltsin was prepared to do the west's bidding no matter what the cost. . . And the costs were high, from Russia’s point of view; as a matter of fact ‘too high’.

To understand the 'Russian soul' one shouldn’t forget that Russia had become the largest country -in geographic terms- not by sending out doves of peace into the world but by forceful military expansion, starting under Ivan III (1440-1505), called 'Ivan the Great'.

Already during the reign of Peter I (the Great), who ruled Russia from 1696 until his death in 1735, Russia had become the earth’s largest connected empire, stretching an enormous 3 billion acres across the Euro-Asian landmass. While the western Europeans explored the new world building colonial empires overseas, Russia expanded overland east and south. East of the Urals it encountered little resistance in a region that had developed little since the height of Mongol power.

The reign of Catherine II (1762 - 1796) was rather the exception in Russia’s approach toward ‘Western values’. Born as the German Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst, she promoted Western education and the Enlightenment among the elite. And she implemented her opinion by expansion of education, freedom of ideas, eradication of lawlessness, cruelty, despotism, about increasing of people's well being. Her most vivid examples of Western enlightened undertakings was the establishment in 1765 of the Free Economic Society and her Department of Public Assistance, which build, controlled and supervised public schools, medical and charitable establishments and asylums all over the empire.

Nevertheless, as a convert to the Russian Orthodox Church, she was also torn into the ‘Russian soul’, to a point where she became a patriot of the ‘old school’. Meaning that Russian history vested her with the title “the Great” not because her Western liberal and enlightened ideas and her promotion of westernization and modernization, but rather because her successful military campaigns, expanding and safeguarding the Russian Empire. During her reign, Catherine II expanded Russia's borders to the Black Sea and into central Europe.

By the end of the 19th century the Russian Empire reached from the Black sea to the Pacific Ocean including for some time Russian America. All three “Great” Russian expansionists, Ivan, Peter and Catherine, were cherished and celebrated leaders throughout Russian history, also during the period of the Soviet Union.

Against this backdrop of Russian history it was rather ‘naïve’ to believe that the brief interregnum during which Yeltsin’s Russia bowed down to the Weast was here to stay. To think that Russian patriots would stand paralyzed on the sidelines while western “Free Market” means for Russia giving away the country's riches - notably oil and gas – which were acquired and defended in a myriad of blood-shedding wars throughout the centuries, some of them even labeled ‘Patriotic War’ (1812) and ‘Great Patriotic War’ (1941 to 1945), such assumption is either quixotic or outright stupid.

In restoring state control over the country's oil and gas reserves, Putin has rightly drawn on his countrymen's deeply engrained patriotism. He plays the first fiddle in Russia’s top patriotic orchestra. As a die-hard atheist Putin openly turning to the Russian Orthodox Church is more than only symbolic. It stands for Russian self-awareness and the reawakening of Russia’s imperial history. It also symbolizes that Russia, the Euro-Asian giant, is torn between the Asian autocratic model and Western liberalism . . . so are the Russian people.

Many observers argue meanwhile that the West has missed a great historic chance by promoting the takeover of the nation’s fate through a bunch of unscrupulous, western-backed ‘financial hyenas’, called ‘oligarchs’, who virtually leeched the Russian people to death.

The first experience most Russians had with capitalism was identical with the portrayal in their schoolbooks during the Soviet epoch: ruthlessly exploitative and generally scornful toward human existence. ‘Liberal capitalism’ had plunged most of the nation's industry into paralysis, had reduced the majority of the population to poverty. In fact, as far as asset ownership was concerned, the gap between the rich and poor was much deeper in 1995 than that which led to the Bolshevik Revolution October 1917.

Thus, the starting point of the deterioration in the relationship between the Russian people and the West lies in the disillusionment about ‘Western values’, to a point where a majority sees the West now disenchanted, yet without any cynicism or hatred. A majority merely realized that it was ‘not for them’, not for the Russian people. This is the status quo.

I see that this forum has assembled a lot of "world-renouned" pundits of Russia. Each has his own gloomy version of Russia's future. I am not going to argue with the doomsdayers about the future of Russia. They might be right - only the future could tell. They do however need to remember that Russia has a history that spans over hundreds and hundreds of years during which the country sucessfully defeated the western agressors on numerous occasions.
From an article recently read in a Russian newspaper: a 40-year old man falls out of a train in Siberia when he goes for a smoke in the train's hallway. Having found himself in the snow amidst a forest with air temperature of -40 degrees Celsius dressed only in a shirt, sportpants and slippers, he runs along the railway tracks for 7 km until he reaches the next station where he is rendered assistance.
You can't defeat a country that has people like that guy living in it... :)

I am convinced that the starting point for the deterioration in the relationship between the West and Russia lies as much in the West as in Moscow.

After 1989 Russia was a power in retreat. It was open to cooperate on geopolitical level. Despite fine words and some limited gestures we treated it rather as a 'defeated power'. The US foreign policy was newly defined, but not within the wider meaning of the 1990 Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty, which limits the deployment of non-nuclear weapons around the continent.

Ever since the 1990s our newly defined policy has been one of militarily encircling Russia. NATO, a relic from cold war, was reinvented as a means of reducing Russia's reach on its western frontiers and seeking to isolate it.

Instead of gestures of reconciliation, Russia’s former east European client states were soon admitted to NATO, as were the Baltic States. A joint commitment, guaranteeing the independence of the former Warsaw Pact countries, would have done for beginning.

However, Russia all of a sudden found itself militarily encircled to its west and, in central Asia, to its south. It is hardly surprising that Russia is unhappy about these acts of open hostility. Russia is still a landmass giant with normal territorial concerns. Not only are Russia's reasonable security concerns being trampled on, but it also feels internationally humiliated.

NATO started to fill Russia’s Western neighbors with new weapons. New bases in Bulgaria, others in Romania, a planned missile defense site in Poland and a radar installation in the Czech Republic. What, for heaven's sake, did we expect Russia to do? Just nodding and looking at that?

Additionally, we blindly sided in the 2008 South Ossetia War with Georgia, in spite of the fact that all neutral sources, including the reputable Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported that Georgian forces had started the military conflict on South Ossetia.

The neutral reports stated that Georgian military used "indiscriminate force against civilian population of South Ossetia" tanks and machine gun fire at buildings in Tskhinvali, including at apartment buildings where civilians sheltered. The Georgian military even used Grad multiple rocket launchers, an indiscriminate weapon, to destroy targets situated in civilian areas. Crushed by the evidence, Georgian side admitted later using claster bombs.

Now some will argue that Russia has a suppressive government and this is why we have to cut Russia down to size. However, a neutral observer would answer that many regimes we cooperate with aren’t exactly model democracies, including Georgia itself.

Anyhow, the West’s behavior, so far, wasn’t suitable for making friend with Russia.

Another article with an anti-Russian slant... How surprising!
And the comments section is full of the usual Russian bashers - walterbenjamin, Didomyk etc...

What exciting lives you must lead - where all you do is spew venom against a country on an online comments section. Reading them (so filled with hate), just makes me wonder whether you honestly believe you are changing anyone's mind.

As is true for any country, let the Russians decide what they want Russia to be. Your comments here make absolutely no difference and have no effect on the people of that country. This section is meant to air your views or to further analyze the subject of the articles, and is not meant to be a platform for your diatribes.

Didomyk, are you still upset by the bill Gazprom sent to that miserable mistake of a country called Ukraine?

I've been listening to predictions about the Chinese threat from Ukrainian nationalists like you for more than a decade and can't help but feel it is wishful thinking. The 'yellow threat' used to be real but China now has a fast growing economy and its population is approaching its peak not to mention rapidly aging. Since they haven't already invaded Siberia it's unlikely they ever will. And there is nothing wrong with Russia's eastern regions gravitating towards Asia - the whole world is focusing more on Asia!

Crimea, on the other hand, will not remain a part of this piece of Africa in Europe for long...

Didomyk, while I agree with many of the points you make, you seem to fail to understand that any given parliamentary democracy is unable to fulfill everyone's conceivabilities. In its extreme reading, democracy is nothing else but the dictatorship of the majority over the minority.

The majority of the Russians who experienced the brief interregnum during which Yeltsin’s Russia bowed down to the West is retrospectively seen rather as a national tragedy . . . even by many Russians who managed during that period to resettle in the West. Of course, most would like to enjoy both: economic security and personal freedom. But if this is not possible . . .

The lowest levels of the pyramid of needs are made up of the most basic requirements, such as food and shelter, or in general the "survival needs", while the more complex needs, such as political freedom, are located at the top of the pyramid.

Russia's early capitalist leaders (oligarchs) in the 1990s were 'stupid'. They simply forgot that they operate in a plurality voting system, where a majority demands that at first at least the the lowest level of the Pyramid of Needs is fulfilled.

Because of their dumbassery, they shot themselves in the foot . . . and, thus, they lost it all.

You are clearly missing the point. The Latinos don't want to separate Texas, they want all the benefits Texas has to offer. Just as the Russians who emigrate to the UK, or Austria or even Israel want the benefits these countries offer. The name Londongrad may have become popular in the media but there is no way it will ever become a Grand Dutchy of Moscowgrad.

Indeed and the "americans that ignore Russia" as the TE propaganda outlet tries to convince us, CONFESSED they spent whooping $160 MILLION they had to borrow from COMMUNIST China just in the period 2009 - 2012 to bribe and subvert Russia NGOs to meddle in the Russia internal affairs. So instead of educating the largely illiterate US population they spent money the US don't have to shove their dirty nose into Russia elections.
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Russia should had bankrolled the "occupy movement" in yankistan or the mass unrest in Britain. Unlike the broke and sinking anglo-texan crapholes Russia has the money at hand to do so. Let see then what the TE propaganda outlet will whine then, heh, heh, heh :D
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"Philip Gordon, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs said the United States provides financial support to Russian civil society.
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“Since 2009, the U.S. government has given approximately $160 million in assistance to support programs on human rights, rule of law, anti-corruption, civil society, independent media, good governance, and democratic political processes,” he said.
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“Most recently, U.S. funding was used to support independent Russian monitoring of the [State] Duma elections and education for independent media on professional and unbiased reporting, encourage informed citizen participation in elections, and enhance the capacity to conduct public opinion polling,” Gordon said."

Seven839: "I personally know Washington’s self interest inside out".
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Washington's foreign policy must (also) be guided by self interest. What else should guide a country's foreign affairs? This doesn't mean that there shouldn't be concessions. My point is that antagonism between the USA and Russia doesn't serve our self interest.
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I take this administration's abandonment of the anti-ballistic missile program in Poland and the Czech Republic as clear signs of a reversal of the policies of the Bush administration toward Russia, and as Obama's attempt of a reconciliation with Russia.
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Of course, critics, such as Pat Buchanan, quickly derided these policies and criticized them for "weakening the United States' foreign relations". But our friends should not forget that Mitt Romney's aggressive stance against Russia (who campaigned with “Russia is, without question, our number one geopolitical foe”) was rejected by more than 50% of the American voters.
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Neither Pat Buchanan nor Mitt Romney IS America. This I can assure you.

There is still active article titled:”The Kremlin’s new anti-Americanism” with 607 posts and now this continuation. It appears that TE is intentionally creating platform for anti-Russoism of their “brainy things” named Walterbenjamin and Didomyk and suitably code named it anti-Americanism. I painfully read (where is Vladimir?) some posts from them 2 years ago but now I just disregard their pasting. TE relishes anti-Russoism but how many different ways one can express the same hate of Russia without being silly.

Hello, Russian people finally defeated communist “slavery”. Americans apparently killed 3 mil Vietnamese civilians fighting communist ideology. Why is then this hostility against Russia now? It must be envy of resource abundance and its (Russian) ownership restoration from Yeltsin anarchy years. Paying off the blackmailing foreign debt well before the due date must also be unnerving.

From where I stand I see the US as a country with the largest prison population in the World who has no rights to teach anyone about human rights and civil liberties, yet the US jailers shove their dirty noses in the other countries internal affairs all over the Globe. What a bunch of US hypocrites, heh, heh, heh :D

U.S. prison population dwarfs that of other nations

Criminologists and legal scholars in other industrialized nations say they are mystified and appalled by the number and length of American prison sentences.

The United States has, for instance, 2.3 million criminals behind bars, more than any other nation, according to data maintained by the International Center for Prison Studies at King's College London.

China, which is four times more populous than the United States, is a distant second, with 1.6 million people in prison.

The United States comes in first, too, on a more meaningful list from the prison studies center, the one ranked in order of the incarceration rates. It has 751 people in prison or jail for every 100,000 in population. (If you count only adults, one in 100 Americans is locked up.)